2quick4u2's profile

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Lets break this down
No, Zed does not need to have less damage than Akali or Kass because he screws carries harder, considered all 3 absolutely assfuck carries in about the same way but Akali and Kass are not countered as hard as Zed is by either Zhonya _or_ GA. His poke pattern is fine and it most certainly has counterplay, you can't get any more counterplay than the brunt of the poke being 2 linear skillshots.
Kass is relevant from level 6 onward, both in lane and in roams, his potency in lane with all the buffs he got in s8 made him have greater agency earlier, he comes online too early for how well he scales and he has much less counterplay than Zed.
Akali has obscurity as a strength to offset her particularly weak poke pattern, her disengage/re-engage play pattern is notably powerful and allows a competent Akali to execute more than one person at a time, but she does have sufficient counterplay outside of her W for sure, unpopular opinion around here but I think if Akali W became a stealth like her old one and power were more evenly distributed amongst her kit, she'd be the best designed assassin by miles.
Zed can all-in at level 4 in some lanes, he doesn't strictly have to wait until level 6 to all-in. Kassadin actually has a level 2 cheese but it's pretty hard to do and requires flash. These champs aren't bound to the level 6 spike, however you need to be exceptional at both to get their full potential out of course. Zed killing you at 6 is probably gonna take 2-3 Qs depending on your hp, an E weaved into the combo, an auto to proc passive and ignite + R of course. I'd say if you couldn't dodge any of his skillshots, you couldn't cc a single part of his all in or in worst case scenario, didn't flash his combo if it was up, he deserves to kill you. What would an assassin do if it couldn't even kill people? His poke as I stated before doesn't lack counterplay, it doesn't outrange a fair number of mages and it includes 2 skillshots. Play around the 22 second cd of his W so he has to think more carefully about just throwing it down to poke you all the time with no repercussions.
Akali doesn't seem overtuned to me anymore tbh, as I said previously I'd like her W to lose power so she could have better power budget elsewhere, but we'll see if Riot do that when they do the kit work to her that they stated they will. Yes she is punishable when her R is used or when her W goes down, Zed is punishable when his W goes down and when his R has been expended. Both will straight up kill someone when used by a good assassin player anyway.
Zhonya shits on Zed pretty hard I gotta be honest with you.
Zed R can be abused by his opponent, you can flash him into a turret or your team to get cc'ed just like you can with Akali E, her E also throws her out of the passive ring so she gets a passive proc if it hits you. Zed reliance on his ultimate can be punished, his long escape cd can be punished, his bad AoE can certainly be punished and where his R positions him when he materialises never changes so that, too, can be punished.
Zed needs buffing as of current however he is not the only assassin who needs buffs. His kit is fine and in my opinion he is one of the best assassin designs Riot ever put out with clear strengths, weaknesses and sufficient counterplay. I respect not everyone will agree with me and that's okay, too.

You do make really valid points. I find Zed's kit also fine but maybe a really mini-rework on his e would be nice. I also want to say that {{item:3157}} doesn't counter Zed just because of it active, but also because of {{item:3191}} 's passive since you get 45 armor and ap from 1100 gold, which counters {{item:3134}} really hard.

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No. He's not weak. The meta is just not that good for him compared to other assassins.
Any type of buff will make him over the top 100% banned in low elo, and that is not fair to them just to appease the "high elo" players.

First of all, you can't simply say that zed is the most mobile assassin in the game
Akali has 1 movement speed, 1 flip and 2 dashes in her kit
Katarina can blink 2 times by shunpoing to a minion, picking her W dagger and shunpoing again to another minion
Leblanc has an ult that has little to no cooldown late game, so she can leap 2 times over the walls instantly and then go back.
Fizz has his E which makes him untargetable and he leaps at the same time on a 16 seconds cooldown level 1, and his Q is a dash which has 8 seconds cooldown level 1
Kassadin can blink every 2-5 seconds with his ultimate.
Secondly, zed's range comes from his W which has 22 seconds cooldown. If zed uses his W:
Katarina can shunpo (14 seconds cooldown without counting her resets from picking up her dagger) in do her damage and get out with shunpo.
Fizz can dash to Zed if he gets a bit close, dodge his 1 q while dealing damage and get out with no harm.
and these are just a few examples, I can write more but you get the point.

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tbf pretty much any mid champ is gonna be trash to people like Faker with akali irelia aatrox LB, etc. around.
Zed still has above 10% pick rate and 50% win rate in diamond+. Zed isnt weaker than many other assassins that cant compete with bruisers/mages mid like Fizz and many other outdated mages.

According to u.gg he has a %49,48 win rate diamond+ and LLStylish shows his all-in damage level 3 compared to other assassins. Spoiler alert he does less with more cooldown on his abilities. Like I said it isn't only Faker who says Zed is weak, but also Laceration, LLStylish and now Riot (Riotblaustoise)

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> [{quoted}](name=Ahpe,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=UdAY1EtF,comment-id=000000000000,timestamp=2018-07-28T13:36:05.710+0000)
>
> It&#x27;s literally all about his Q. Don&#x27;t get hit by crimson rush and you&#x27;re good.
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> If it&#x27;s that bad, buy {{item:3123}} {{item:3076}} if possible or take {{summoner:14}} if you&#x27;re confident you can snowball on him.
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> If you need {{item:3165}} then you probably already have enough waveclear to shove him in and you&#x27;re probably ranged so he can&#x27;t even get in range to empower Q you to the point where his healing isn&#x27;t strong enough to help him win lane.
>
> Of course watch out for lvl. 6 all-in and if he chunks you enough with crimson rush he&#x27;ll obviously try to all-in you there too.
The main issue is that Morellonomicon is too expensive and there is not any AP item with lower price that inflict grievous wounds, so meanwhile you build Morellonicon which takes a lot of time, Vladimir can harass you however he wants. He will outtrade you, he will get you low hp and you have to return base and when you come he won't let you farm and he will keep doing the same until you buy that item. I have played against a lot of Vladimirs and when your are under tower, they go take the shot and Q you. They don't mind losing hp because their lifesteal is absurd and they get full hp instantly, so you can't farm in lane, under tower, nowhere if the Vladimir knows how to play good. That applies to most Mages and midlaners. AD users at least can buy a cheap item {{item:3123}} which can fight lifesteal, but AP users loose lane by default.
At the time you finally can buy Morellonomicon you would have lost a lot of cs if the Vladimir is good and you won't be able to outdamage him because he scales pretty good. He won't leave you farm even under tower.
The only way you win that matchup as an AP user is if your jungler is good and plays with the team, if not Good Luck.

That is exactly my problem. When you play AP champion you must buy {{item:3165}} and that is way too expensive to buy in the laning phase. You will miss a lot of minions so that makes it even harder to get the item. And even if you buy it, it has to be the first item so you won't any damage for a long while...

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I just noticed in a comment that you said you like to play Kat/Akali/Zed into him. Maybe try Diana out in some norms and get a feel for her, find a Vlad to practice against - She's a great answer to Vladimir.

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His early game is weak unless you don't stay away from his Crimson Rush. I'll just give you a screenshot to help explain.
https://imgur.com/HxVzKJ7
His resource bar turns orange when he almost has it and it turns red when it's active. He can hold onto it for 2 1/2 seconds so it's not as oppressive as Yasuo tornado.
#Also
* His R is an instant PTA proc for 4 seconds which at the end heals him more for each champion hit with the initial cast
* His E is on the weaker side of waveclear abilities in the early game so you should be able to shove him in with anything else
* Always keep track of his W CD
https://imgur.com/jiAsb17
Here's a link to his LoL wikia page
http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Vladimir

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What if I told you that the 2-3 champions to play might have very bad matchups against vladimir?
Because vladimir definetly has matchups where he has a hard time.
When facing a vladimir I like to pick {{champion:69}} {{champion:142}} {{champion:90}} in midlane and win lane easily.
Alternativly you can pretty much pick any mage, hard shove the wave and bind him to his turret cause he can hardly match the wavelcear of most midlaners. This lane priority can be used to establish vision and allow your jungler to get pretty much every scuttle crap, since the enemy jungler can't contest it when vlad is forced to hug his tower.
Yes things will get really difficult when he gets ahead, but that's similar to alot of other champions.